EarlDoherty

That kind of remark is beneath contempt, Carlson (but if you're trying to emulate Gibson, you've still got a ways to go).

For those interested, the context of my remark can be found immediately before the above posting. Considering that I have given ample evidence of having read, understanding, and even finding flaws in Kloppenborg's presentation, I can only assume that Carlson's dig is yet another means of avoiding actually answering the points I have brought up and which I have indicated he has not addressed.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I fear I am going to regret this, but since Ben has committed himself to reviewing my chapters on Q in The Jesus Puzzle, I will take the time to comment on his present observations so as to hopefully prevent him from making the same mistakes when he does that, and waste both his time and ours.

This alleged circularity is your interpretation of my text…

….based on your unwillingness and/or inability to recognize what it is I am arguing. I will now proceed to outline that:

Of course. Don’t be so impatient.

No, it is an argument for interpreting the lack of common settings between Matthew and Luke as indicating that no traditions involving Jesus as their source, or the settings in his ministry which gave rise to them, were preserved in Q. This in turn is an argument for suggesting that this was so because in the formation of these Q2 traditions, no Jesus existed in the Q mind to be attached to them. I have constantly made the argument that if there was, that if such sayings as those found in Q1 and Q2 were the product of Jesus, or of the early church attributing them to him, they would have been preserved—at least some of the time—in conjunction with biographical and personal elements relating to him. We would not have the situation which forces people like Mack and Crossan to offer the rationalization that the Q community was only interested in his words and not his person. This is so contrary to normal human impulse and common sense that we are entitled to reject it. (Now, please note that I am not speaking here of that handful of extended anecdotes which involve Jesus as a character in them. Those I deal with separately. We are talking about the individual, stand-alone sayings which form the bulk of Q.)

Of course Matthew and Luke are going to attribute these sayings to Jesus. That attribution takes shape in the (different) set-ups they provide for those stand-alone sayings. But if those set-ups do not appear to exist in Q, this does nothing to identify what was in the Q mind when those sayings were first formed and preserved. And observing that in this case Matthew and Luke “agree” in identifying the audience as “the disciples” is hardly compelling or conclusive. That would be bound to happen by chance in at least some instances. I would suggest that the appearance of the name “Jesus” in front of several sayings in the critical edition of Q is simply reading it there with no stronger justification than your own observation I’ve just referred to.

As I have just explained, that mutual attribution is the product of Matthew and Luke and is therefore irrelevant. My argument is indeed aimed explicitly at those parts in which each evangelist offers something very different, and the fact that this is a consistent oddity, that every stand-alone saying requires the two evangelists to supply their own settings and set-ups and identifications of the sayings with Jesus, is a very strong argument for suggesting that this is the case because when these sayings were formed in Q’s history, there was no historical Jesus to attach them to. You simply refuse to acknowledge or recognize this.

In the same vein:

Of course it does. The fact that all these Son of Man sayings could have been preserved as the product of Jesus, or developed later by the early church as though his own words of self-reference, and yet never have any of them formulate with an identification between this Son of Man and Jesus himself (and don’t confuse this with any identification which is stated or implied by Matthew or Luke—such as by changing Q’s Son of Man to a first person pronoun or pronominal adjective) is so unlikely that we are entitled to regard the possibility that Q does not make such an identification because the Q community originally had no such historical person to identify them with. You simply refuse to acknowledge or even recognize this possibility. Such a conclusion is a fit with the other similar conclusions based on other observations which I also make.

Of course it does. If the community forms a saying which speaks of the onset of the movement as involving only John the Baptist, and completely the ignores the figure of Jesus as involved in it, then we are entitled to regard this as indicating that they ignored him in such a role because at the time the saying was formed, there was no historical Jesus in the Q mind. You simply refuse to acknowledge or even recognize this possibility. Such a conclusion is a fit with the other similar conclusions based on other observations which I also make. (Am I repeating myself? I certainly am. In case you haven’t noticed, these mutual fits with their similar possible conclusions are piling up.)

And I’ll mention two other ones which Ben made no reference to in his recent posts. The first is Lk/Q11:49. I’m not going to repeat all the discussion, including here, on this saying, but simply point out that I have offered a lot of argument for expecting that Q could have worked in a reference here to Jesus’ own death, and it did not do so. In conjunction with that, we have observed that Q nowhere makes the slightest allusion to a death (let alone a resurrection) of its Jesus figure. This in itself is an astonishing feature of this document which no one has ever satisfactorily explained. We are entitled to regard this void as indicating that Q knew of no such death and resurrection, which in itself would be inconceivable if Jesus existed in any way remotely like the Gospel picture. You refuse to acknowledge or even recognize this possibility. Such a conclusion is a fit with other similar conclusions based on other observations which I am also making.

The other is the opening Baptist pericope in which he prophesies a “coming one” who will baptize with fire, the description of which in no way suggests either a teacher/prophet already on the scene or anything but a figure due to arrive in the future to judge and inaugurate the kingdom. I argued extensively in my rebuttal to Zeichman that there is no way to get around this, and even Kloppenborg admitted as much, interpreting the erchomenos as a future figure, perhaps angelic. But how could such a saying have been formed and attributed to John which creates that erroneous impression, that John is not speaking of Jesus? Thus we are entitled to regard this as indicating that it did so because when the saying was formed and attributed to John, no historical Jesus existed in the Q mind. You simply refuse to acknowledge or even recognize this possibility. Such a conclusion is a fit with—but you know the drill by now.

In this connection I made an observation in my article which I posted earlier (at least, I think I posted it earlier), and no one saw fit to attempt an explanation. It also involved Kloppenborg making an admission which even he did not attempt to explain, and in fact showed every sign of not acknowledging or even recognizing the possibilities that were inherent in it. It is so striking that I am going to repeat that part of the excerpt here. Anyone is welcome to attempt an explanation/rebuttal to what I make of it.

Which brings us to the Dialogue pericope. Ben accuses me of circularity:

There are two ways I approach this. One is to build on the other observations about Q that I have outlined above. Since there are so many indicators that the early stages of Q lacked an historical Jesus figure, we are entitled to approach the little bit of anecdotal material which does reference him to see if a logical explanation for his presence in these few cases is available and can fit within the overall argument. In regard to the 2 or 3 miracle/controversy pericopes, such an explanation is readily available, in postulating that these items originally expressed the activity of the Q preachers in general, and were only later recast in terms of a singular Jesus. This is not invalid in principle, or ad hoc, because it ties in with that other specific evidence for the lack of an historical Jesus. No, there is nothing specifically in the Beelzebub controversy, or the healing of the centurion’s servant, to constitute positive ‘evidence’ or indicators in that regard. But there is a suggestion of it in both the Sign of Jonah pericope, and especially in the Dialogue. Before getting to that, let me reiterate the principle I have advocated in this paragraph. It is not “circular” to be led to a conclusion by specific evidence, and then to approach another facet of the situation and postulate how it too could conform to the conclusion generated by that specific evidence, even if the evidence in this case is not as compelling. In other words, it’s like the scientific method. With a background of reasonably established evidence, observation and potential conclusion obtained within a given field of research, scientists will often then turn to another aspect of the field and set up an experimental postulation and see if it will conform and be explained according to the evidence and conclusions already dealt with. If A, B, and C have been established as certain or likely, they will investigate D with the assumptions that apply to A, B, and C and see if the postulation works or has some basis. This is not “circularity”. It is legitimate experimentation. If the experiment doesn’t pan out, if there is no way to make the A, B and C assumptions work in the matter of D, then D is rejected as conforming. If it does, then we can at least provisionally accept that D is in conformity with the others. That is one of the bases on which I address Q anecdotes like the Dialogue. If someone is too hidebound to consider anything as even remotely possibly valid which is not part of established scholarly protocols, that's not my problem.

But if you have read my book, and have read what I have to say on the matter in my rebuttal article, you will realize there is much more involved than simply an experimental postulation as to how the Dialogue could be explained as a later Q development once they had introduced an historical Jesus. The basic one I employ in the book is that the Dialogue is very obviously (and Kloppenborg agrees) a later redacted construction. It is put together out of discrete units (one quite obviously in the Gospel of Thomas) which had a previous life lacking the context of the Dialogue which they came together to form. (A similar argument is made in favor of rejecting the complex of 3 chreiai in Q1.) Another is the observations I’ve made in the excerpt from the article which I repeated just above, that there is an incompatible conflict between the erchomenos here and that term in two other pericopes of Q, leading to the conclusion that this spells an insertion of an historical Jesus which, by definition, can only have taken place in a later stage of Q, and certainly later than most of the other material that is traditionally placed in Q2. Several other observations in my book and article also dovetail into such a result, including my extensive discussion concerning all the indicators that suggest that Q’s attribution evolved from Wisdom into Jesus, thus placing the introduction of Jesus in a later stratum. In the same vein, if the Son of Man in Q bears all the marks of being an expected future figure, not identified with Jesus except possibly in an anecdote which itself bears other marks of being a later evolution (namely, the Dialogue), then this is further justification for placing that pericope in the later or latest stratum.

All of this is “evidence”, Ben, not circularity. It’s just that you are unable or refuse to recognize or acknowledge it as such.

Now, I’m going to quote from your latest posting (at least at this time of writing) to illustrate how you are misled into asking invalid questions of me because you are locked into your historical Jesus paradigm where Q is concerned.

Well, I have pointed out through this posting several places in both book and website where I have justified placing the Dialogue in a late stratum of Q. But let’s observe the sort of ‘evidence’ you seem to be requiring and which I am not supplying. Does the Dialogue really need to resemble the language of the Temptation Story? I don’t see why. Perhaps the latter is really the very last addition to Q and possesses a unique language, while the Dialogue could come from a stage a certain time before it, but still later than other Q2 material. After all, if you read Kloppenborg, it sounds like amendments and insertions were made to Q every other week, and if we are dealing with a period of two or three decades, which is not impossible, the basic Q1, Q2 and Q3 divisions are probably extremely simplistic. There is absolutely no reason why I should have to supply evidence of similar language between the Dialogue and the Temptation. That is your set-in-concrete orthodox paradigm/thinking speaking. The gegraptai marker and the alleged “validity of the Law” concern (which are simply two inseparable sides to the same coin, certainly not “two” different markers) is specific to the one Temptation pericope (surely you don’t subscribe to Zeichman’s handling of the pericope as constituting what amounts to three separate units!), and there is no logical reason why such a theme needs to appear in the Dialogue for me to place it later than the bulk or all of Q2, or to prevent me from treating it as I have. Similarly, a complex like those three chreiai in Q1 could be, as it now stands, a product of the Q3 redaction stage without them necessarily having to contain whatever you define as Q3 elements. A moment’s thought will surely make that evident.

Another requirement would also be contradictory. You suggest I need to point out similarities between how, for example, wisdom is treated in the Dialogue, with how she is treated in other pericopes which are acknowledged to be (even by myself) part of Q2. But that’s asking me to defeat my own purpose. If the Dialogue is a late addition reflecting a completely new feature (the introduction of an historical Jesus), how can you demand that I point to commonalities within it to other pericopes identified as part of an earlier stratum? You requiring such a thing is fallacious, Ben. It sets up an inherent contradiction. You will accept my conclusion that the Dialogue belongs to Q3 by me supplying “evidence” that it belongs in Q2???

Your demands make no allowance for the very natural situation that all strata are not going to rigidly adhere in all their parts to sets of principles of redaction and content, so that if a given pericope doesn’t contain X and Y and even Z it doesn’t belong. Evolving documents involving the hand of many redactors and reflecting evolving beliefs and outlooks over time don’t behave that way. Again, and it’s a point I reiterate in my article, this rigidity comes out of longstanding scholarly pursuits taking place behind impressive writings desks and along hallowed university halls that bear no resemblance to actual Sitz im Leben situations of a first century maelstrom of sectarian preaching, especially irrational sectarian preaching beset on all sides by opposition, persecution and even death for one’s convictions.

Instead of demanding I conform to your paradigms, you need to examine my case on its own, as laid out in my book and supplemented by a lot of new observations in the article, and first see if it makes consistent sense; then ask yourself does it better solve the many difficulties I have raised (and even others have raised) in regard to Q and its relationship to the rest of the early Christian record.

I hope I haven’t wasted an entire evening here. I certainly won’t be doing it again. If none of this has made Ben (the most clear-thinking person on the other side, as far as I’m concerned) alter his evaluation of the state of my argumentation even a little, then I will truly abandon hope. (I suppose I could paraphrase Dante and post this sign over the entrance to this forum: Abandon hope, all ye mythicists who enter here.)

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Thanks for the reply, Earl, even after originally bowing out. There is much to go over in your post, of course, but let me first deal with the most confusing statement that I have found in my first run-through:

I am not certain what suggestion of mine you are referring to; in fact, I recall suggesting precisely the opposite, to wit, that you point out the differences between how wisdom is treated in the dialogue and how she is treated in Q2:

(These, BTW, were just suggestions. I am not at all requiring you to talk about wisdom or about linguistic affinities in particular; rather, I was asking for and giving potential examples of an argument of your choosing as given in your book.)

But notice that one of the suggested arguments was to show how wisdom in the dialogue unit has nothing in common with how it appears in Q1 or Q2; that is quite the opposite of what you said I was requiring of you, namely commonalities, is it not?

If I required that of you, you are correct; that would be fallacious. So where did I require it of you?

Ben.

Zeichman

Mr. Doherty, thank you for the extended post. It has been helpful in better understanding particular aspects. I'll keep my response short.
Except this isn't true, as I said in my original essay. Ben, if I recall correctly, has a useful webpage about the setting of the Q sermon that reinforces this. Setting aside the dialogues and extended action scenes:
Q 6:20 "And raising his eyes to his disciples he said..."
Q 7:1 "He entered Capernaum..."
Q 10:2 "He said to his disciples"

Besides, setting aside the dialogue and action sequences is begging the question. "Not including those verses that tautologically would indicate this is wrong..." This seems to be eliminating the possibility of major counterexamples, and if so, such IS question-begging. Being dismissive of actual counterexamples and precluding the possibility of others is extremely circular. If I've misunderstood you, please inform me. If this is correct, it can only be circular.

I'm sure it would have nothing to do with multiple attestation of specific words as elsewhere in their reconstruction of Q.

Q 6:20 Lk: "Then he looked up at his disciples and said" Matt: "...his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them saying..."
Q 7:1 Lk: "...he entered Capernaum..." Matt: "As he entered Capernaum"
Q 10:2 Lk: "He said to them" Matt: "Then he said to his disciples"

Besides, what is the evidence for attributing the Beelzelbub controversy and the distance healing to Christians in Q? Ultimate tradition-historical provenance is irrelevant. It seems to be conjecture.


This cuts both ways: one finds references to Jesus in Q1, Q2, and Q3 materials to be likely in their respective stratum, then one expects that such was their original stratigraphical location. This sort of thing isn't going to convince anyone who disagrees and it just means people are going to talk past each other.

How is this method used by Kloppenborg in determining stratigraphical location? The sermon of Q 6:20f and the mission of Q 12:2f are composite, too, as are most parts of the gospel. Kloppenborg notes this only in relevance to how particular traditions were combined into their larger unit, HE NEVER USES IT TO DETERMINE STRATIGRAPHICAL LOCATION.

I claimed no such thing. I clarified this misinterpretation of my three units of Q3 above: (1) Q 4:1f, (2) 11:42c, (3) 16:17. Each of these three units are concerned with the eternal validity of the Torah. I hope I have made myself clear: I would not claim that Q 4 comprises three units in such a way.

Ben C Smith

Thanks for noticing, and for calling the page useful.

It is my page of agreements, for any interested parties.

Earl, for convenience, Chris clarified this in post 30 of this thread.

Ben.

EarlDoherty

You didn’t. That was my delusional overdrive kicking in at the three-hour mark. I seem to have reversed your example for me into an actual demand on your part. The funny thing is, when I reread it all before posting I asked myself, is that right? By then I was too tired to care! Besides, I was sure you would forgive me, Ben, if I’d gotten it wrong.

I’ll take a page from Mark Goodacre and appeal to Lucan-Q “editorial fatigue”….

Well, maybe I should give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’m still suspicious that this “clarification” took place following my rebuttal. After all, in referring to Q3, and objecting to my placement of the Dialogue there, you appealed to three elements of Kloppenborg’s Q3, scripture cited from the Septuagint, the understanding of Jesus’ miracles, and the way scripture functions non-predictively. All three of these elements can only apply to the Temptation story. In 11:42c and 16:17 there is no scripture cited, no miracles referred to. OTOH, your reference to “anxiety about the enduring validity of the law” does fit the latter two verses and does not seem to relate directly to the use of scripture in the Temptation; I wondered about that. But perhaps you could point me to the spot in Kloppenborg where he includes 11:42c and 16:17 as part of his Q3. I guess I missed it. I know that Mack does, but I thought you regarded Kloppenborg as the last word, and ‘disapproved’ of Mack’s “destabilization” of Kloppenborg’s stratification hypothesis?

(Perhaps while you’re at it you might identify the location in The Formation of Q for Carlson’s phrase “biographical-narrative preface” which he tried to ridicule me on for not recognizing as Kloppenborg’s. He seems to be passing up the chance to tell me himself and discredit my thought that he might be bluffing. But then, he has also passed up explaining how he was misinterpreted as maintaining that there was indeed some kind of narrative structure to Q.)

Anyway, I am not going to comment further on your posting here. I’ll wait until both you and Ben issue more comprehensive installments. I gather you are working on a rebuttal to my rebuttal. Good luck with that.

Earl Doherty

Zeichman

If you reread my original post, you'll see that I make none of these claims about the other two units.

I cited Kloppenborg's "Nomos and Ethos in Q" in the post to which Ben links. This essay is devoted to the topic. Mack's treatment of 16:17 (adding 16:16, 16:18) destabilizes a large part of the basis for placing it in a later stratum: corrective of a possible interpretation of Q 16:16. I'd hate to once again say that I don't worship Kloppenborg, but it seems to be necessary.

Kloppenborg's exact phrase is "narrative-biographical introduction," which I trust is close enough to what Carlson said to satisfy you. He uses and discusses it in Formation, 325f. Kloppenborg may have used the exact phrase Carlson quoted elsewhere (he uses the word "preface" in this discussion, too), but I'm not going to scrounge for it, as it is inconsequential. I hope the matter will be laid aside.

Ben C Smith

That would be Father Ben to you. You are absolved.

Mind you, I have never met him in person, but somehow Carlson does not strike me as the bluffing kind.

Nord: He's bluffing! I'll kill him.
Enola: He's not bluffing; he never bluffs.

—Waterworld.

Chris might be working on a more extensive rebuttal to all points considered; what I committed to was much more modest, if you recall. I was looking for nonincestuous arguments in your book for keeping the dialogue about John the baptist out of Q1 or Q2. I will have a response to your 3-hour post sometime soon.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

If the exact phrase is important, page 327 has "biographical-narrative preface."

Doherty's "narrative structure" is still tilting at the strawman. Q has narrative, even apart from Q3 (as Kloppenborg defines it). One of Kloppenborg's major contributations to Q studies is to show that the amount of narrative in Q is not unusual when compared with other sayings collections. Thus, Doherty's attempt to appeal to Kloppenborg--of all people--for the proposition that Q lacks narrative is rather pitiful. For example:

Stephen

Vincent Guilbaud

Stephen said:
Chris has already given us:
Q 6:20
Lk: "Then he looked up at his disciples and said"
Matt: "...his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them saying..."

Q 7:1
Lk: "...he entered Capernaum..."
Matt: "As he entered Capernaum"

Q 10:2
Lk: "He said to them"
Matt: "Then he said to his disciples"

I agree with Earl that 'disciples' doesn't mean a lot,
but Stephen (or Chris or Ben), can you give us more? :Cheeky:

Because it could be so damaging for the Jesus Puzzle case that I might change side.

Thx